1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a connector capable of connecting a plug based upon a universal serial bus (USB) standard to a receptacle.
2. Related Art
The USB standard has been widely adopted in a cable or a connector used for connecting a host device such as a personal computer to a peripheral device such as a digital camera.
In the USB standard, specifications for an A connector connected to the host device side and a B connector connected to the peripheral device side are already established. However, with recent trend toward compactness of the peripheral device, such a B connector having a relatively large size has difficulties in coping with the trend, so that a specification for a mini-B connector downsized from the B connector based on a USB 2.0 standard is established, and a connector based on the specification is provided (for example, see Patent Document 1). In addition, there have been rising demands for connecting peripheral devices to each other, for example, connecting a personal digital assistant (PDA) to the digital camera and connecting the digital camera to a printer. Accordingly, a specification for a mini-A connector downsized from the A connector based on a USB on-the-go (OTG) standard which is a supplement to the USB 2.0 standard or a specification for a mini-AB connector which can be connected to any one of the mini-A connector and the mini-B connector has been established.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 3,109,782
On the other hand, a particular peripheral device such as a digital media player (DMP) requires a further downsizing. However, a USB connector has only a pair of signal lines for serial transmission. Therefore, for example, even though picture data need to be transmitted concurrently with sound data, when the USB connector is used only to transmit the picture data, or when a transmission speed higher than a speed realizable with only the signal lines of the USB connector is required to transmit a high quality picture data or a high quality sound data in a short time period, it is necessary to additionally provide a connector for the sound data transmission or an auxiliary connector for accelerating the data transmission. Accordingly, it is difficult to downsize the USB connector.